


Criminal Ladies

by spencerjareau



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 05:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15163898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spencerjareau/pseuds/spencerjareau
Summary: If this renegade organisation has a ringleader, it’s Elle Greenaway.





	Criminal Ladies

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my Tumblr (username also spencerjareau), based off a photoset by ssaalexblake: "Criminal Minds AU, the former ladies of the BAU form a vigilante crime fighting team. They use their collective and unique strengths to catch the unsubs from outside the restrictive arms of the law."
> 
> I'm trying to get back into writing and I loved this world when I wrote it. This will hopefully be a multi-chapter.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated!

If this renegade organisation has a ringleader, it’s Elle Greenaway. Sharp cheekbones, sharper wit – law enforcement was not kind to Elle, and she is not kind to the criminals who slip through its net, villains lurking in the night. Elle is used to the shadows: she is the monster in the monsters’ closets, hunting them down with all of the determination and none of the restraint of the BAU. The night her FBI career ended with a gunshot in the night, Elle found her calling.

  
She discovered Jordan Todd kicking her heels back in Counter-Terrorism. The BAU was too much for her, Jennifer Jareau called back in to replace her own maternity replacement, but walking out of her promotion wasn’t the end for the headstrong agent. IT was the too-little-too-late’s she’d struggled with, the cases where the arm of the law was slowed down by bureaucracy, where victims died needlessly and unsubs got away. “I need to make a difference,” she’d told Elle, a fire burning in her dark eyes. “I can’t just let evil win.” Elle had smiled, recognising her need to prove her worth, to go above and beyond. “I can help with that.”

  
Ashley Seaver has sought her out, fresh from her graduation. Elle wanted to say no, wanted to spare the innocence of this fresh-faced rookie, but she’d heard of Charles Beauchamp – who hadn’t? – and she knew that Ashley had lost her innocence a long time ago. The FBI was fine for reasonable justice, for legal justice, but unconditional justice was another thing entirely, and Elle knew better than most what the BAU could do to a girl with, at best, rocky faith in it. So Ashley stayed, and two became three.

  
Emily Prentiss, now she was tricky. Everyone knew about Supervisory Special Agent Prentiss and her willingness to bend ethics to achieve her end goal. She died, and Elle suspected there was more to the story. But when she came back from the dead, Interpol appointed her head, and Emily turned Elle down: “I’d prefer to stay on the right side of the law.” And then JJ had been kidnapped, the combined powers of the BAU and Interpol barely enough to save her, electric burns and tired joints the physical evidence of an ordeal that had shattered her psyche. A call from an unknown number, smooth vowels: “I’m in.”

  
Then there was Alex Blake, esteemed scholar, redeemed agent, wife, teacher, friend. Mother. She’d left the BAU for her past – Strauss dead, Ethan dead, death at the front of every file Aaron Hotchner passed her, ghosts everywhere she looked. She wasn’t surprised to see Emily Prentiss outside her lecture theatre two months after her resignation. “I’m guessing Charlie sent you,” she’d said wryly, organising her files as Emily looked on. “She’s a very private person,” Emily had replied with a raised eyebrow, handing her a coffee.

  
And so there were five. The girl with the gun, resolve forged in the white-hot fire of injustice. The bomb expert, tightly-wound, explosive, lethal under pressure. The rookie, forever searching for the lies beneath the words. The fighter, slow to trust but quick to love. The linguist, determined not to add to the ghosts.

  
_“We have a problem,” Emily said, pressing the ‘end call’ button on her phone. “That was Easter. Interpol knows there’s something wrong with the Heminsley case.”_   
_Elle smirked. “Everyone knows there’s something wrong with the Heminsley case. Everyone suspects we exist. But nobody can prove it.”_


End file.
